DSpace at VNU: Political space in Vietnam: a view from the 'rice-roots

This article was downloaded by: [RMIT University] On: 21 February 2013, At: 11:47 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The Pacific Review Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpre20 Political space in Vietnam: a view from the ‘rice-roots' Andrew Wells-Dang a a Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, UK Version of record first published: 18 Mar 2010 To cite this article: Andrew Wells-Dang (2010): Political space in Vietnam: a view from the ‘rice-roots', The Pacific Review, 23:1, 93-112 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09512740903398355 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sublicensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material The Pacific Review, Vol 23 No March 2010: 93–112 Political space in Vietnam: a view from the ‘rice-roots’ Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 Andrew Wells-Dang Abstract Single-party, authoritarian states such as Vietnam are frequently characterised as having ‘closed’ political opportunity structures and ‘un-free’ socio-political systems The validity of this observation depends, however, on the viewer’s frame of reference Seen from the perspective of active citizens, Vietnamese political structures offer increasingly greater space for collective action than a state-centred institutional analysis would predict Episodes of contentious politics surrounding land disputes and public parks during 2007 provide evidence of the changing dynamics of participation in politics Actors involved in these and similar campaigns are broadly optimistic about the future prospects for an opening of political space within the existing system These findings are contrasted with international reports of violations of political rights and with the Vietnamese government’s own efforts at legal reform Although signals remain mixed, to some extent Vietnam might be becoming a ‘rice-roots democracy’ in practice, while remaining a single-party state The voices and experiences of civil society actors will continue to shape opportunities and risks in the expansion of political space Keywords Political space; Vietnam; land rights; contentious politics; civil society Introduction In spring 2007, two large privately-owned companies, one of them with funding from Vietnamese who live in the former Soviet Union, were given Andrew Wells-Dang is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, UK, conducting research on domestic civil society networks in China and Vietnam He is concurrently the director of an international nongovernmental organization in Vietnam, and is affiliated as a researcher with the University of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vietnam National University and the University of Hong Kong’s Centre of Asian Studies He has published both academic and policy articles on East and Southeast Asia in edited collections including Transborder Issues in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand: Mekong Sub-region Social Research Center, 2008) and Modernity and Re-Enchantment: Religion in Post-Revolutionary Vietnam (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2007) as well as contributions to journals such as China Review International, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy in Focus, and Asia Times Address: ngo Nguyen Hong, Hanoi, Vietnam E-mail: andrewwd@gmail.com The Pacific Review ISSN 0951-2748 print/ISSN 1470-1332 online C 2010 Taylor & Francis http://www.informaworld.com/journals DOI: 10.1080/09512740903398355 Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 94 The Pacific Review approval by city authorities to develop a plan to transform Hanoi’s largest urban park into a private, Disneyland-style theme park The story was circulated widely in the local state-controlled press and criticised on the Internet Local residents spoke out against the plans, which were portrayed as corrupt and anti-poor Influential citizens, including respected retired officials, editorialised against the agreement Faced with an upsurge of public outrage, the city government backed down in August 2007, putting the park redevelopment plan on hold During the same period, local residents from at least five peri-urban areas around Hanoi staged protests at the city People’s Committee or at central government offices such as the Ministry of Justice and National Assembly The protesters called for an end to land-grabbing by speculators and fair compensation for local land seized for development purposes Police followed and negotiated with the protesters, ultimately forcing them to disband, but in most cases without using violence or making arrests Similar demonstrations took place in Ho Chi Minh City, some of them attended by a proto-opposition group, Viet Tan, who attempted to link with the protesters While many of the protests were ineffectual, some did achieve their objectives These ‘episodes of contentious politics’ (McAdam et al 2001) illustrate a variety of new political spaces opening in present-day Vietnam Despite ongoing Communist Party control, the media is taking a more active role as public watchdog on cases of corruption, environmental damage and land use In particular, the Internet offers a new space for public discussion and criticism that is less restricted than the print or broadcast media Internet use is one example of the greater potential for overseas Vietnamese to add a transnational element to domestic political discourse Within urban Vietnam, well-connected and respected individuals, such as intellectuals, artists and retired officials, feel greater freedom to speak out on public issues Poor and rural Vietnamese, meanwhile, may attempt to raise their voices through the Party-government system, but when these fail are increasingly resorting to public protest as a vehicle for expression A common international presentation of Vietnam, as well as neighbouring China and Laos, stresses far-reaching market economic reforms without any corresponding political change (Freedom House 2008; Human Rights Watch 2007) According to this view, any perceived openings in political space are illusory or imagined as long as a single-party Communist regime is in power By contrast, other observers see evidence of a ‘fragile yet assertive form of Vietnamese democratic practice’ in which ‘supposedly non-political activities become transgressive events’ (Thomas 2001: 311) In fact, not all contention is necessarily anti-Party, and direct challenges to the singleparty system remain taboo Within these limits, the formation of public collective action in Vietnam comprises an unexpected and under-appreciated expansion of political space over the past decade: unexpected, given preconceived ideas about political change in authoritarian systems, and A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 95 under-appreciated, due to limitations in state-centred or macro-level ways that many analysts conceptualise and attempt to measure political space Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 Approaches to defining political space: a review As with related concepts such as ‘civil society’, ‘public sphere’, and ‘social movements’, there is no single accepted definition of political space A literal definition taken from political geography would simply be the physical locations where political activity takes place Public squares, memorials, universities, and government buildings are all public spaces that may be more or less open to political expression A second category is virtual: the media, academic discourse, and cyberspace Thus, political spaces are plural and can be examined individually or relationally in linkages to each other A danger inherent in the spatial definition is ‘the territorial trap’ of internalizing political boundaries, assuming that geographical or virtual political spaces are associated with the territorial state (Ferguson and Jones 2002) Legal boundaries not always match with the mental maps that people construct in their heads This suggests an alternative definition of political space as the sum of people’s perceptions of the range of political action and expression that is open to them in a particular time and place One such construction is the ‘power cube’ proposed by John Gaventa (2007: 206), in which space can be viewed as closed, invited, claimed and created A civil society might thus adopt a mix of strategies: to open (claim) closed spaces, utilise invited spaces, and/or create spaces that are autonomous of government or corporate control.1 ‘Expanding’ or ‘opening’ political space has obvious positive connotations, echoing the opening of the Iron Curtain, as well as China’s process of ‘reform and opening up’ (gaige kaifang) and Vietnam’s ‘renewal’ (doi moi) Thus, ‘freedom is spatialized in metaphors of autonomy, as in lack of physical constraint to mobility’ (Dalby 2005) In a survey article on political space in Southeast Asia, Kevin Hewison (1999: 224) defines expansion of political space as ‘replac[ing] authoritarianism with more representative political regimes’ He contrasts Malaysia and Singapore as ‘illiberal’ or ‘Asian-style’ approaches to political space and democratisation that are dominated by ruling parties, with what were at the time emerging democracies in Thailand and Indonesia Vietnam, reasonably, is classified as a ‘post-socialist authoritarian regime’ with ‘very limited openings for opposition perspectives’ (1999: 224, 242) In this reading, political space is equated with (perceived) moves towards democracy, a public sphere and civil society Human rights organisations such as Freedom House (2008) offer particular conceptions of the forms of political space that are required for a population to be considered ‘free’ These spaces consist of elections, macrolevel politics, and legal systems, the key procedural arenas of liberal democracy Individual rights are the foundation of such a system; a civil society is only possible when free, autonomous individuals assemble voluntarily out Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 96 The Pacific Review of their own self-interest, forming an arena of social action separate from the state and the market (Cohen and Arato 1992: ix) Democratisation theory implies directionality to political change, with countries either ‘ahead’ or ‘behind’ in the (inevitable?) transition to the end point of full democracy East Asian political reality, especially in recent years, looks a good deal more complex than that: in place of modernist views of development along a linear trajectory, societies and agents within them are moving back and forth among a variety of alternative, overlapping political spaces A further difficulty with the democratisation approach is the deduction that little to no political space can exist in authoritarian systems, since political space is associated with democracy and opposition politics in the first place If these are the sole criteria, civil society and social movements cannot exist in Vietnam by definition, since the system is ‘un-free’; like human rights, political space is something that ‘we’ in Western liberal democracies have and ‘they’ not (Goody 2002; Hann and Dunn 1996) This conception is consistent with a definition of social movements as set repertoires of collective action that are historically and culturally restricted to West´ 2002; Tilly 2004) and cannot be sustained in nonern democracies (Colas democratic contexts (Tilly and Tarrow 2006: 57) But while open spaces for political expression may indeed be fewer or differently structured in authoritarian regimes, this does not preclude their existence Political space is not fully limited by the state nor always formally constituted in recognisable institutions The political is also personal, and political space is nuanced and structured variously for different groups and individuals In the ‘state-insociety perspective’ of Joel Migdal and colleagues (1994, 2001), ‘societies affect states as much or more than states affect societies’; even authoritarian states are embedded and inter-related to society writ large Since states themselves are social constructions (Finnemore 1996), they are thus contingent on other social actors, with blurry or fuzzy boundaries between state and society, and relations that can be ‘mutually transforming’ (Kohli and Shue 1994) This redefinition of state–society relations is essential for understanding the dynamics of plural and intertwined political spaces where the state has historically been strong Social movement theorists have contributed the useful idea that groups in society act based on the ‘opportunity structures’ existing in their political environments Political opportunity structures, according to Sidney Tarrow (1998: 2), are ‘consistent dimensions of the political environment that provide incentives for or constraints on people undertaking collective action’ In simple terms, social movement theory postulates that political space will expand when the opportunities favouring the activities of social movements and networks exceed the constraints placed on them This implies a complex set of relationships and interactions between social actors, and between social actors and the state: from information sharing and strategizing to forming alliances, cooperating, confronting, and negotiating outcomes Political space is created not only as a result of social action but also through A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 97 the process of citizens engaging the state, each other, and the market, along a range of strategies from dialogue to advocacy to contention Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 Reunification Park: a case study of political space in practice Hanoi’s Reunification Park (Cong vien Thong Nhat) is the largest green space in the centre of the crowded Vietnamese capital Built by volunteer labour in the 1960s and once named after Lenin, the park is popular with rich and poor alike who pay the equivalent of a few pence each to enter The park facilities, managed by a state-owned company, are poorly maintained, with shabby carnival rides and informal hawkers occupying much of the open area at the park’s main entrance Several better-constructed play areas were constructed by multinational corporations in 2001, which raised eyebrows in the international media given the site’s association with Leninism (Hayton 2006) While it is not as well known to international visitors as the public spaces of Hoan Kiem Lake or Ba Dinh Square (Thomas 2001: 308), the park’s commemoration of Reunification has symbolic political overtones of national unity and the end of the Vietnam War In early 2007, following aborted attempts to renovate the park several years earlier, the Hanoi People’s Committee gave a green light for two private companies, Tan Hoang Minh and Vincom, to prepare a plan to privatise the park and turn it into ‘a small-scale Disneyland’ (Phung Suong 2007).2 Details of the plan, including in-depth interviews with the company directors, were published in newspapers, particularly those managed by various branches of the Youth Union; these papers (Tuoi Tre and Tien Phong, along with Thanh Nien) are generally viewed as more independent than other state-owned media However, the largest number of articles appeared on news websites such as VietNamNet and dantri.com.vn.3 Although the corporations insisted that redevelopment would serve the interests of all residents of Hanoi, this was belied by descriptions of a planned five-level underground car park and shopping area, 3-D theatre and nightclub, as well as the price tag of 1,500 billion dong – approximately £45 million (Dantri 2007) As news of the corporations’ plans spread, public discussion about Reunification Park turned to dismay and outcry A local architect, Hai Nguyen, was the first to put his misgivings online in mid-April (Vietnam Studies Group 2007) His polemic, ‘Let’s save the park! Let’s save our city!’ was posted on a city issues website (http://dothi.net) Other statements soon appeared on blogs and websites, including at least one set up especially for the purpose (www.savehanoipark.com) The mainstream media, which had reported news of the redevelopment plans and given a mouthpiece to corporate leaders, did not pick up on the groundswell of public concern until later By May, the English-language Viet Nam News referred to ‘cries of protest’ from Hanoi residents in an article that presented a neutral but confused picture of the debate (Thu Huong 2007) Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 98 The Pacific Review The cause to stop the corporations’ plans was taken up by a network of architects, retired government officials, journalists and bloggers Some activists, but by no means all, had existing professional connections to the Hanoi city government or other authorities One prominent member of this informal network was retired city planner Tran Thanh Van, formerly an architect in the Ministry of Construction’s Institute of Rural and Urban Planning who had led a previous anti-corruption campaign in the Thang Long Water Park case in 2000 Ms Van’s postings on VietNamNet drew widespread praise (and some criticism) from readers (VietNamNet 2007a, 2007b) Similarly, a leading biologist from a government research institute, Ha Dinh Duc, sent an angry letter to the state president that was posted online (VietNamNet 2007c) Both professionals and ordinary people combined environmental and political appeals to stop the proposed redevelopment of Reunification Park Access to the park for poor people was a common theme of online postings, even if the bloggers themselves may not have been very poor Concern about corporate involvement also surfaced repeatedly, but the largest single concern was losing the little remaining public space in central Hanoi, along with the trees which are ‘the lungs of the city’ (Trung Hieu 2007) While the physical space of the park was not co-terminus with the political space to discuss its fate – no actual protest activities took place within the park itself – activists made a clear connection between these various spaces and quality of life in the city By claiming Reunification Park as public property, contenders also asserted their right to speak for and as citizens of the Vietnamese polity By summer 2007, opposition to privatising the park had crystallised into a public campaign On August, leading academics and architects organised a conference, sponsored by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) HealthBridge (formerly PATH Canada), on the ‘System of Green Public Space in Hanoi’, issuing a call to ‘save green space in Hanoi’ which was posted on the Internet Participants in the conference were interviewed by the state-owned media, which began posting large quantities of public comments about the controversy, split roughly 80 per cent to 20 per cent against the corporations On 17 August, the Hanoi city government suspended the redevelopment plans (Doan Loan 2007), giving the campaigners at least a temporary victory and putting privatisation indefinitely on hold The Reunification Park campaign is a clear example of a civil society network, defined here as the joining together of organisations and individuals to influence power around a shared conception of the common good In this case, individual activists played key roles, using their contacts in the media and government to advocate for a change in the city’s decision In the process, they engendered a public debate that involved hundreds if not thousands of Hanoians in reflection about the nature of development in their city and the value of public space This debate highlights the mixed Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 99 role of the media in Vietnam (Heng 2004): ultimately state-controlled, yet with certain freedom of movement, media both served city government and corporate interests and also the purposes of activists at different times during the unfolding events Activists engaged in what Kevin O’Brien (2004: 107) terms ‘boundary-spanning contention’, which ‘goes on partly within the state and hinges on the participation of state actors.’ Such a campaign ‘is not prescribed or forbidden, but tolerated (even encouraged) by some officials, and not tolerated by others’ It is also worthwhile examining what the campaign was not It was not primarily led by NGOs; these only entered the network towards the end of the campaign International actors played only a minor role in publicising the issue and funding the August 2007 conference And none of the activists were publicly anti-government or oppositional in their stances, though they were at times harshly critical of corporate and city statements about the park Several outspoken critics were current or former government employees – but, importantly, they were national government employees, not the city government which was involved in the redevelopment plans When these critics spoke publicly about Reunification Park, they did so as residents of Hanoi with links to a different (and higher) level of government than the one directly responsible for administering the park Hanoi-based activists may have an advantage in this sense over other regions of Vietnam with less access to central government and lower per-capita Party membership, but the principle of engaging multiple levels of government holds nationwide The activists’ stance points to the plural, fuzzy and contested nature of interaction between civil society and various branches of the state and challenges definitions of civil society as non-governmental and fully autonomous The Reunification Park campaign was the first such public effort in Vietnam to have been conducted in a primarily virtual format.4 Without the political space provided by the Internet, organisation of the Reunification Park network would have been much harder Physical meetings would have required more logistical preparation and funding, plus the risk of confrontation or restrictions from authorities or corporate representatives Blogs allowed activists to post their concerns directly without passing through the official media, while websites such as VietNamNet were able to post more information with fewer filters than print media As long as content was not perceived as anti-government – and the privatisation opponents limited their critique to that single issue – the state did not attempt to censor their expression Thus, participants in the campaign strategically used opportunities in the available political space in order to spread their views and reach their objectives Land protesters: between state and opposition Most episodes of contentious politics in contemporary Vietnam are connected in some way with land issues, including ethnic minority land claims Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 100 The Pacific Review and demarcation of the Chinese border During the revolutionary period, both northern and, after 1975, southern farmers sought various ways of resisting collectivisation of their lands (Kerkvliet 1995) The significant local uprisings in Thai Binh province in 1997 and in the Central Highlands in 2001 and 2004 revolved around taxation, corruption and land rights (Luong 2005; UN High Commissioner for Refugees 2002) Even industrial strikes, which have increased dramatically in number over the past five years, are connected to land issues, in that most strikes involve migrant workers who face land pressures in their home villages (Wells-Dang 2005) In addition, many industrial parks outside major cities are built on previously agricultural land that has been expropriated from its original users While no wide-ranging rural uprisings have taken place in the past several years, localised episodes of land protest have become a common feature of the Vietnamese landscape Protests against the development of golf courses, for instance, have occurred repeatedly outside Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (BBC 2004; Thai Doan 2008); like theme parks, golf courses are highly unequal and exclusionary forms of land use Land in the periphery of major cities is extremely valuable for development, but when land is seized by the government, peasants are typically compensated only for the agricultural value of the land, not its market value Similar processes in China, where land rights are less protected than in Vietnam, have sparked hundreds of thousands of local protests (O’Brien and Li 2006) Unlike the Reunification Park dispute over public space, many rural protests are primarily concerned with the uses and values of space for economic production, land that is legally owned by the state but allocated to households for their own use Rural and peri-urban residents who not receive adequate land compensation in their local areas increasingly travel en masse to large cities and press their cases there In 2007–8, several dozen such demonstrations occupied the pavement and sometimes blocked streets in front of the Hanoi city government, National Assembly offices, and the Ministry of Justice Numbers ranged from about 30 to several hundred people, and demonstrations lasted an average of two or three days, with participants sleeping on site Police, both uniformed and plain-clothes, were always present, but usually at a distance Some protesters carried signs or banners, which may be seized by police Most recent demonstrations have been peaceful, with one alleged self-immolation since 2005 (Reuters 2007) Police and demonstrators negotiate an end to the sit-ins, allowing the protesters to return home unharmed, but no information is available to determine how many demonstrations attain their aims A particularly large and extended land demonstration occurred in Ho Chi Minh City in July 2007 Hundreds of farmers from seven southern provinces converged on the city to protest expropriation of their land by local officials; they occupied a major downtown street for 27 days, attracting local and international press attention In the end, exhausted, the demonstrators put Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 101 up no resistance when police cleared the area and told them to return home (Deutsche Presse Agentur 2007) Unusually, the Ho Chi Minh City demonstration also attracted supporters from an overseas-based opposition group, the Viet Tan Party Articulate Viet Tan members used their website and underground radio station (Chan Troi Moi or ‘New Horizon’) to publicise the demonstration while also drawing attention to their own cause The Vietnamese government considers Viet Tan a terrorist group, although none of the group members appear to have been involved in any armed activity for decades, if ever (Agence France Presse 2007) On the other hand, there is no evidence that the southern demonstrators themselves had any involvement or support for Viet Tan; the more likely explanation is that Viet Tan members, sensing a chance to hitch their cause to the largest demonstration in Ho Chi Minh City for years, attempted to take advantage of the political opportunity Viet Tan’s presence, as well as the participation of the Buddhist opposition leader Thich Quang Do, probably did little to help the demonstrators’ cause Rather than demonstrators using media and overseas groups to advance their interests, it seems more likely that the media and Viet Tan used them Some analysts have identified Viet Tan as a driving force behind present and future civil society activism (Thayer 2008: 10), while others see external political groups as extraneous actors in a system in which change is more likely to arise from within (Heng 2004) Most land protests not attract such international media coverage or high-level political attention Urban ethnographer Nguyen Vu Hoang (2007) conducted fieldwork in an outer district of Hanoi which is a site of major construction and road-building, examining cases of one neighbourhood threatened by demolition and another street where residents were under-compensated for their houses seized for a road-widening project In the first neighbourhood, residents signed petitions, held meetings and sitins They also reached out to a nearby district where residents had held off a construction project for several years and demanded greater compensation.5 In the process, the residents discovered a map that was different from the construction plans that had been shown to them by local officials After much effort, they were eventually able to bring this to the attention of the city government, who overruled the district authorities’ decision and saved the neighbourhood from demolition, at least for the time being The core of this neighbourhood’s campaign strategy lay in their creative use of the state machinery against itself, joining with part of the state in order to press a claim from another part The neighbourhood Communist Party cell leader, in fact, became the spokesperson and de facto leader of the group A retired state enterprise director, he was educated, wellconnected and respected by everyone in the neighbourhood On the nearby street that was due for widening, the residents’ group became led by an active-duty policeman, who as a current government employee had access to more information than the retired Party cell leader (Nguyen 2007) Use Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 102 The Pacific Review of ‘insider–dissenter’ connections in this way limits risk from what may otherwise be a dangerous path of opposing entrenched state interests (Heng 2004) It also fits at the edges of what David Koh (2006: 70) describes as normal ways to play local politics in Hanoi, with residents as well as officials using moral arguments, personal connections and reciprocal benefits to pursue their objectives Such a strategy does not ensure success, but it does give otherwise disempowered groups a chance at making their voices heard While the neighbourhood campaigners temporarily achieved their aims, the nearby street residents’ group was ultimately unable to save their houses from demolition, and the group dispersed as residents were relocated to other districts (Nguyen 2007) In autumn 2008, Catholics in Hanoi unsuccessfully attempted to reclaim several tracts of land that had been appropriated by the state in the 1950s; in this high-profile case, the state media framed the Catholic protesters as an unruly special interest group, while Catholic spokespeople and their international allies presented the protesters as victims of state repression (AsiaNews 2008; VietNamNet 2008) (In an ironic twist, Hanoi authorities then converted the disputed properties, which otherwise might have been sold for commercial use, into public parks.) Like the 2007 Ho Chi Minh City land demonstrators, the Catholic protesters attracted international media coverage and support, but this strategy proved ineffectual and may have backfired on their cause In contrast, the Reunification Park campaigners and the Hanoi residents’ groups in Hoang’s study, while not all successful, formed coherent plans to use the available political space to seek common interests From a diverging perspective, contentious episodes of ‘public discontent and social tension’ may also be seen as evidence of the lack of space for political action (Colm 2008; Freedom House 2008) In this case, the focus is kept squarely on the state’s response to contention, rather than the agency of the contenders themselves International media and human rights groups frequently write articles and reports about the detention or arrest of prominent campaigners, including Viet Tan activists, some of whom have received lengthy prison sentences for apparently minor, non-violent offences As of December 2007, the US State Department’s Human Rights Report cited ‘at least 30 political detainees’ held by the Vietnamese government, though ‘no reliable estimates’ were available of other prisoners At least 14 national security-related prisoners were released during 2007 (US State Department 2008) Episodes of contention with neutral or successful outcomes, or amnesty and release of prisoners, are not generally included in such international reports, since these cases not fit the definition of abuses or violations A focus on individual dissidents and opposition figures may also inadvertently obscure broader social trends, perceptions and experiences, as human rights advocates publicise and rightly condemn political ‘crackdowns’ but miss gradual loosening of restrictions and expansion of political space A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 103 over a sequence of years A fuller understanding of the overall trend is only available through locally-grounded, qualitative empirical research Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 Civil society views of political space The constructivist, bottom-up approach of my research on the abovementioned episodes of contentious politics, among others, assumes that people directly involved in collective action have an awareness of the political opportunities and risks associated with it; indeed, they are in the best position to know the extent of those opportunities and risks Their voices and experience, in turn, are fundamental to an understanding of political space in Vietnam From February to July 2008, as part of ongoing doctoral field research, I conducted exploratory interviews with 20 civil society actors and supporters in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Of these respondents, 10 are founders or directors of Vietnamese NGOs and NGO networks, while others are Vietnamese staff of international NGOs, journalists, and international donors engaged in giving support to civil society development Ten similar interviews, using an identical open-ended questionnaire, were conducted in Hong Kong and Hanoi with respondents working in China As these interviews were all conducted in urban areas with staff of registered or unregistered organisations, they were not intended to form a representative sample of civil society networks, but rather to scope attitudes and concepts and to identify case studies for further research All of the interview respondents self-identified as members of civil society, or in the case of international NGOs and donors, involved in support to civil society as they understand the term One question asked to each respondent dealt with perceptions of political space from the standpoint of civil society actors: ‘In the past five years, you think the space for organisations like yours to operate has expanded, shrunk, or stayed about the same?’ Twenty out of 20 respondents in Vietnam answered that space has expanded, while only two out of 10 of the Chinese interviewees did so A general thread running through Vietnamese respondents is that civil society groups can operate with fewer restrictions from the state and have a greater sense of independence than in the past; respondents offered a wide range of explanations for why they see this as the case (Assessments of space to operate in China, in contrast, were much more mixed, with space seen as opening for some organisations in some areas, but becoming more restrictive for others, with most respondents viewing the overall trend as neutral at best.) A sample of views offered by Vietnamese NGO respondents6 is as follows: Our space to operate has expanded a lot It’s much freer now, both to talk about civil society and to carry out projects 104 The Pacific Review People of my [older] generation are quite happy that we have witnessed a big transformation There is much less police state control than there was before the 1990s With the coming of the Internet, printers and photocopiers, there’s no way they can control everything! Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 Five years ago, no one knew what ‘civil society’ meant, but now we agree on a translation [xa hoi dan su or ‘civil(ian) society’] and it is no longer sensitive to use the term It’s much easier to register a new organisation now The authorities understand better and have more capacity and more supportive attitudes More donors are focusing now on local community groups like ours It’s become acceptable and normal to start an NGO, and some local philanthropy is starting, especially in Ho Chi Minh City Space has opened up largely because we have more opportunities to network Anything we can ourselves as an organisation, we do; what we can’t ourselves, we as a network While this article does not consider potential variations in political space at sub-regional levels within Vietnam, such variations exist to some extent and should be examined further One interview respondent in Ho Chi Minh City, for instance, believes that political space for local associations and other forms of civil society is presently greater in northern Vietnam than southern, since the government is more concerned about maintaining political control in the south (interview, April 2008) This finding appears to stand conventional wisdom about southern openness on its head A follow-up question asked what changes respondents expect in the next five years; most answered that they expect opportunities to continue to increase as in the recent past On the question of what issues and obstacles are facing Vietnamese civil society, most responses focused on logistical issues: When I started this organisation, I thought my largest problems would be government relations and fundraising Actually, neither of these has been difficult! The hardest part has been recruiting and maintaining qualified staff Our relations with the government are good, but we have little opportunity to participate in larger government projects like Project 135 [for poverty reduction in disadvantaged communes] Our networks and capacity are too small A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 105 Real estate prices are so high now that it is hard for member associations of our network to find any office space Most people are working voluntarily out of their homes Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 We need to learn how to adopt good practices from the business sector, while still remaining non-profit We should think in terms of clients, not beneficiaries, and social entrepreneurship not only projects from donors There’s no money to fund this network, but we it anyway These informants may or may not have knowledge of, interest in or accurate perceptions concerning macro-level political issues in Vietnam, but they have perceptions and experience concerning their own operations and the opportunities and risks they face Interviews were conducted in private and largely in respondents’ native language Respondents were in no way echoing government policies or the Party line; in fact, most were quite critical of certain state practices towards civil society, economic policy, ethnic issues and poverty reduction, and so on Finally, there was no difference in perceptions between Vietnamese and international respondents, while there were distinct divergences from the Chinese interview sample Thus, there is no reason to believe anyone was untruthful about their perceptions or exhibiting some form of false consciousness Certainly, no respondent was arguing that conditions in Vietnam are ideal or could not be improved But most people compared the present with the past, not with an imagined perfect state When asked to describe changes over the last five years, many respondents drew comparisons to further in the past and also into the future They did not rush to compare Vietnam to other countries, but instead with itself at different points in history Of course, Vietnamese can and compare their own country to others – most generally to their richer neighbours in the Southeast Asia region, such as Thailand and Singapore (In fact, one of the key arguments used by corporate leaders in the Reunification Park case was that rich Vietnamese otherwise have to go to Singapore to enjoy a theme park experience!) However, the immediate frame for understanding political space is personal and domestic: an assessment of today’s situation compared to yesterday’s experience, not compared to another country’s situation that is not as familiar This long view is not available to most outsiders, not because they are ignorant or Vietnam is in some way unique, but because they have not lived the experiences of Vietnamese actors and consequently see the world differently Vietnamese civil society, and politics generally, need to be understood on their own terms before they can be profitably compared to others 106 The Pacific Review Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 State responses to increasing political space The Vietnamese government began to take note of the challenges posed by popular collective action in the aftermath of the 1997 Thai Binh uprising Although protests in the Central Highlands have been more widely covered in the international media, as they fit with the narrative of human rights abuses against ethnic and religious minorities, the Thai Binh revolt was arguably of greater significance to the Vietnamese state, as it took place not in a remote ethnic area which no Hanoi or Saigon-based government had ever fully controlled, but rather in a revolutionary centre of the northern Red River Delta (Luong 2005) In the words of one high-level advisor to the Vietnamese government: In Thai Binh and the Central Highlands, and in some other rural areas of the country the democratic rights of the people were violated, their interests were damaged by poor policies, the gap between the rich and the poor was widening in the market economy, and not a few officials were corrupt These factors have led large numbers of people to make extended appeals to higher levels, and in some cases have already erupted into conflict or have the potential to so (Hoang 2007: 6) The Thai Binh uprising was the immediate impetus for the passage of a Decree on Democracy at the Commune Level (Nghi quyet ve Dan chu co so); in 2007 this was expanded to an Ordinance (Phap lenh) covering all local government administrative units Co so, meaning ‘base’, is generally translated as ‘grassroots’, but could perhaps be more appropriately rendered as ‘rice-roots’ democracy Rather than procedural democracy via elections, the rice-roots variety is in principle participatory, focusing on decentralisation, local decision-making, use of government budgets, and consultation Following Ho Chi Minh’s oft-quoted (in Vietnam) paraphrase of Abraham Lincoln, government should be ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’ (cua dan, dan, vi dan) ‘What is beneficial to the people we must strive to do; what is harmful to the people we must strive to avoid’ (Ho 1994) The 1997 Decree and 2007 Ordinance outline what particular legal and political decisions must be publicised at the local level (‘ensuring the people’s right to know’), which must be ‘discussed and decided directly by the people’ at the village level, and which should be decided by government officials after consultation and comment from the people (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2007) In general, the first category refers to government policies at the central and provincial levels, the second relates to infrastructure and social affairs within the village, and the third to implementation of government programmes at the local level Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 107 Rice-roots democracy should not be confused with Western liberalism It is meant more as a ‘social value’ (Hoang 2007) or methodology of governance than as a political system Thus, as a government advisor explains, ‘Vietnam [indicating the Vietnamese party-state] has a political orientation and socialist ideology that is different from liberal democracy However, in the process of developing democracy, Vietnam is consciously learning and applying appropriate theories and practices from developed countries and the management experience of Western law-based states where democracy has a centuries-old history, tradition and culture’ (Hoang 2007: 4) The decree and ordinance on rice-roots democracy are one example of new legislation aimed to increase popular voice within the existing political system Along with legal reform has come a stronger role for the National Assembly as the vehicle for debating and passing laws During the past decade, the assembly has promulgated legislation on gender equity (2006), reform of the political system at the commune, ward and town levels (2002), conflict resolution and local mediation (1998), public administration reform, and anti-corruption Resolutions of the 9th and 10th Congresses of the Vietnamese Communist Party (in 2001 and 2006) have included statements calling for a ‘law-based state’ and ‘democratic society’ This is reflected in what is now the pre-eminent political slogan in Vietnam, a description of the goals of Doi moi: ‘a rich people, a strong nation and a just, democratic and civilised society’ (dan giau, nuoc manh, xa hoi cong bang, dan chu, van minh) Thus, in the intent of the Vietnamese state, Renewal is not simply a programme of economic reform, as it is frequently portrayed by international observers; it includes both economic and political elements as part of a plan for national development On paper, then, Vietnam has taken steps towards greater democracy within its one-party political system The intent of rice-roots democracy legislation is not to end the Communist Party’s monopoly on power, but rather to preserve it by preventing future conflicts such as the 1997 unrest in Thai Binh The result, notwithstanding, is a significant opening of political space – if it can be implemented and realised Actual practice often varies considerably from formal principles When the above laws and ordinances were promulgated, some local officials were given basic information and training to carry them out, but on a one-time only basis with a limited budget and no follow-up.7 Other localities were reportedly not trained at all (World Bank 2003: 99) Meanwhile, as a result of administrative reform procedures, term limits of five years have been enforced for local government positions, so that none of the people trained in 1998 or 2002 are still in their original offices.8 Moreover, there is a noticeable lack of local political will to carry out some of the elements of rice-roots democracy, resulting in ineffective implementation in many locations (Hoang 2007), particularly in remote areas and further away from Hanoi External evaluations of the 1998 decree range from limited positive effects to manipulation and co-optation by local officials, but all agree that low capacity, limited funding, and poor application Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 108 The Pacific Review have hindered its reach (Shanks et al 2004: xiii) According to the Democracy Ordinance and other legal documents, for instance, the proposal to redevelop Reunification Park should have been posted for public discussion by the Hanoi People’s Committee before a decision was made In practice, the invitation to two well-connected corporations was made behind closed doors, and leaked to the public after the fact There is a conceptual problem here too If the elements of the Doi moi programme are addressed in the sequential order of the ‘rich people, strong nation’ slogan, it is not clear whether wealth and strength will ever lead to equity and democracy That is, legal reforms notwithstanding, the current Vietnamese government is giving priority to economic growth, industrial production for export, and urbanisation over the needs of rural and urban communities Public debate on these political topics often happens too late, when it happens at all However, it is in this space between the letter of the law and de facto government policy that activism can occur, as in the case of Reunification Park Effective actions require engagement and negotiation with the state, as the ‘state-in-society’ approach (Migdal 2001) suggests; but activism also calls for independent thinking and strategizing Implications In their conclusion to Contentious Politics, Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow (2006: 199) argue that ‘Citizens of authoritarian regimes are normally compliant, rising in resistance only when dramatic windows of opportunity open up’ This reasonable-sounding generalisation does not easily hold in the case of Vietnam, which is clearly authoritarian by Tilly and Tarrow’s definitions, and where the windows of opportunity, while real, are contested and ambiguous rather than dramatic Although Western-style social movement organisations and opposition parties not exist in Vietnam, some citizens nevertheless engage in political discussion, collective action and contentious politics ‘in spite of their seeming powerlessness at the hands of [the] state’ (Loeschmann 2006: 1) These are not merely ‘hidden transcripts’ or ‘weapons of the weak’ (Scott 1985, 1990) but rather active efforts at contention through a repertoire of ‘rightful resistance’ (O’Brien and Li 2006) Existing approaches to measure political space shed some light on, yet are insufficient to explain political dynamics in Vietnam While attempts to rank or classify countries according to indicators as ‘open’ or ‘closed’, ‘democratic’ or ‘not free’ may have macro-level comparative value at an abstracted level (Tilly and Tarrow 2006: 62–7), such etic rankings and definitions tell us little about the complexities of politics in any particular society Political space cannot be quantified on a linear scale or graphed in a box; it must be understood within a national or local context Furthermore, static pictures of the nature of political space cannot justice to the historical processes at work in political change; a time dimension is Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 11:47 21 February 2013 A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 109 essential (Sztompka 1993) Political analysts need therefore to focus not just on the immediate impact of current events, but also on cumulative longterm trends and processes that build over time These trends are less visible in structures and legal systems, which can serve as an unchanging or slowly evolving fac¸ade, behind which social practices may in fact be changing rapidly Trends and processes can be better captured through understanding the perceptions and experiences of those who live through them, even if these actors not have complete information Outcomes are not predetermined but are contingent on a range of factors, which always include governance and the state as well as transnational influences, but should also not leave out the agency of civil society actors to expand the political space that is available to them If this analysis is correct, then political developments in Vietnam will be determined more by domestic factors, including the role of civil society networks, than by international trends Broad, far-reaching transformations like the eastern European ‘colour revolutions’ are unlikely, as are scenarios of overseas opposition groups making common cause with discontented urban intellectuals Instead, political changes are taking place within the complex and actually existing political system and society, and citizens join with elements of the state to express their views As Vietnam edges toward a more open polity, change will come first from the riceroots Notes I am grateful to Matt Desmond (Oxfam International) for pointing out this reference Meaning a private theme park modelled after Disneyland The Walt Disney Corporation was never involved in these plans, but as in other cases of brand piracy, was probably not harmed by the publicity Data on Reunification Park, except where noted, is taken from personal interviews and media and legal analysis shared with the author Notable recent examples of online organizing in China have been the protests against a chemical factory in Xiamen (Li 2007) and railroad construction in Shanghai (French 2008), both conducted mainly by communication through cell phone text messaging Personal communication, March 2008 Interviews were conducted in a mix of Vietnamese and English Most quotations are translated from Vietnamese by the author Interview with Vietnamese official, Ministry of Home Affairs, December 2007 Interview with local government officials, Thanh Hoa province, August 2007 Some officials have been promoted or rotated offices, while others have retired or been transferred References Agence France Presse (2007) ‘Pro-reform party coddled in US, branded terrorists in Vietnam’, 16 December; 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Singapore as ‘illiberal’ or ‘Asian-style’ approaches to political space and democratisation that are dominated by ruling parties, with what were at the time emerging democracies in Thailand and... media, academic discourse, and cyberspace Thus, political spaces are plural and can be examined individually or relationally in linkages to each other A danger inherent in the spatial definition... ideas about political change in authoritarian systems, and A Wells-Dang: Political space in Vietnam 95 under-appreciated, due to limitations in state-centred or macro-level ways that many analysts